Oldest cave art ever found: a 67,800-year-old hand stencil from Indonesia reshapes our view of ancient humans. The limestone caves of Sulawesi kept their secrets for tens of thousands of years, until researchers uncovered a faded reddish patch on a wall inside a cave on Muna Island. What looked like a simple pigment blotch turned out to be part of a human hand pressed against the stone and colored long ago.
The handprint measures about 14 by 10 centimeters, showing sections of fingers and part of a palm. One fingertip is narrower than expected, likely altered deliberately—either by shifting the hand while painting or by applying pigment afterward—giving the hand a claw-like look. This modification is a rare variation of a universal human gesture found nowhere else in the world’s ancient cave art.
For a long time, archaeologists held that Europe housed the oldest rock art. New findings, however, push Southeast Asia to the forefront.
Uranium-series dating establishes a minimum age of 67,800 years for the hand stencil
An international team led by researchers from Griffith University, Indonesia’s BRIN agency, and Southern Cross University studied the mineral layers that formed over the pigment after it was applied. Published in Nature, the study employed uranium-series dating to measure radioactive decay in tiny calcite deposits that accumulated atop the artwork.
The calcite formed about 71,600 years ago (plus or minus 3,800 years). This means the hand stencil beneath it is at least 67,800 years old. This pushes the previous Sulawesi record back by more than 16,000 years and surpasses a contested Neanderthal-hand stencil from Spain with a minimum age of 66,700 years.
Professor Maxime Aubert of the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research notes the discovery reveals an artistic tradition far older than previously thought. “It is now evident from our new phase of research that Sulawesi was home to one of the world’s richest and most longstanding artistic cultures,” Aubert said, adding that its origins trace back to at least 67,800 years ago.
The same rock art panel shows repeated visits: another hand stencil 11 centimeters away yields a minimum date of 60,900 years, and a separate pigment layer dates to around 21,500 years. The two painting episodes are separated by at least 35,000 years, suggesting generations returned to the same site to create art over a span longer than most of human history.
What the paintings tell us about ancient beliefs
The carefully narrowed fingers set this stencil apart from thousands of similar finds worldwide. While the precise meaning remains uncertain, researchers consider the design potentially connected to ideas about humans and animals. “This art could symbolize a close relationship between humans and animals,” says Professor Adam Brumm of Griffith’s Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, noting early Sulawesi artworks also include scenes that may depict part-human, part-animal figures.
The team surveyed 44 sites across Southeast Sulawesi, including 14 newly identified locations. They dated 11 motifs across eight caves, with most hand stencils dating to the Late Pleistocene. Notably, Gua Mbokita yielded stencils dating at least 44,700 and 25,900 years ago, while Gua Anawai produced stencils from roughly 20,100 to 20,400 years ago, placing them near the peak of the last ice age.
Rethinking how people first reached Australia
Where the cave lies also matters for understanding how early humans migrated to Australia. During the Pleistocene, sea levels dropped, exposing Sahul—a landmass that joined Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea. Reaching it required crossing the Wallacea region, a chain of islands between mainland Asia and Sahul.
Scholars have debated two possible routes: a northern corridor through Sulawesi and the Maluku Islands toward western New Guinea, and a southern path eastward through Timor and the Lesser Sunda Islands toward northwestern Australia. Until now, evidence along both routes has been thin.
Dr. Adhi Agus Oktaviana (BRIN and Griffith University) stresses that Sulawesi art provides the oldest direct evidence of modern humans along the northern migration corridor. “It is very likely that the people who made these paintings in Sulawesi were part of the broader population that would later spread through the region and ultimately reach Australia,” Oktaviana says. This finding supports the idea that the ancestors of the First Australians were in Sahul by about 65,000 years ago.
Dating aligns with excavations at Madjedbebe in northern Australia, where artifacts suggest human presence between roughly 68,700 and 59,300 years ago. Professor Renaud Joannes Boyau of Southern Cross University notes that Sulawesi’s ancient rock art provides the oldest direct evidence for modern humans along this northern migration route into Sahul.
For further reading: Rock art from at least 67,800 years ago in Sulawesi, Nature, 2026, with a full author list and DOI 10.1038/s41586-025-09968-y.
Would youLike this discovery to reshape our understanding of early human migration, or do you think new dating methods might complicate the timeline even further?
